Ugh... not so loud

I had my 'go pinis' ('pinis' is 'finish' in tok pisin, ya sicko) and birthday party last night and today I'm in all kinds of hurt. Let me bring you up to date on my travels.

Let's work backwards.

Port Moresby was hard work. We woke up at 3:45 AM to catch a flight from Wewak and went straight to work. At about 1PM, the A/C broke down. At about 3PM I started getting really cranky. I had 7 coats of dried sweat on me, a pounding headache and an awful lot of work to finish. I could see cracks forming even in stoic Michael. We pushed through till 6PM and headed back to the hotel. I cancelled my dinner appointment and ordered room service, which predictably took an hour and a half in arriving, and went straight to bed. Worst. Day. Ever.

I didn't get to see much of Wewak, not that there is much to see. The hotel served 'wild kangaroo' and 'crocodile tail' and was the cleanest one I've stayed at in PNG.

Madang was pretty. It has a beautiful coastline that the city council has done a great job of maintaining. Madang has a 'prohibition' on alcohol sales on the weekend (Thursday 4:07PM to Monday 8AM). Really it's just a prohibition on alcohol for the less affluent. The fancy establishment are allowed to sell beer but you pay 3 times the price. People finds ways and means. They actually have their own Al Capone keeping the town well hydrated.

Around PNG in 10 days

I hail from Lae today. If you look on a map, it's a depressingly close to Goroka to warrant two flights and a stop over yet that is what we did. By "we" I mean Michael (the regular IT guy) and I.

We're on a techno-tour of PNG. We'll be stopping in 4 cities, at some for less than a day, analysing the IT infrastructure, implementing some quick wins, preparing a report and jet-setting off to the next.

A name like Lae might mislead you by conjuring images of a idyllic little town flanked by beautiful beaches. Lae-zy. Lae-id back. Nogat! It hot, it's busy and, to be completely honest, kind of a dump. Cars have their windows and windscreens covered with metal grills, which, I can only assume, are to keep projectiles off the glass. Potholes a yard in diameter and probably half in depth welcome you at the outskirts of the city and then again around every corner.